Opportunities
by Phlogistics
Summary: Rachel sees everything, including a near-death experience, as an opportunity. One-shot.


_Disclaimer: I don't own either Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Glee._

**Opportunities**

Rachel has always known she's destined for better things. Money, fame, adoring fans, and several successive leading roles on Broadway will all be headed her way by the time she turns twenty-two, she's sure.

Or she was sure until two minutes ago. But now, as a man that is in severe need of emergency dental work attempts to rip a hole in her neck, she'd settled for living to see eighteen.

"P-please stop," she rasps, pushing ineffectively on his shoulders. "I'm sure cannibalism is an unhealthy dietary choice, and that you don't want to risk a- a bright future in whatever profession you're passionate about by dirtying your criminal record with first degree murder."

Her attacker doesn't seem to care much about the consequences of killing her, though, caloric or otherwise, and she lets out a little shriek as he bites into her neck and _sucks_. Through the pain, she's vaguely conscious of the gross little sucking sounds he's making.

As her brain begins to turn fuzzy, she spares a moment to think how unfair it is that she's going to die before she gets the chance to star in a revival of _Les Mis_. All the time she's spent training her voice to perfection and working with Glee Club to improve her social skills (though she thinks Kurt still hates her), and nothing will ever come of it. Just because some crazy decided it'd be fun to—

Rachel sneezes violently as a cloud of dust erupts in her face.

She groans and reaches for a tissue, then realizes _Oh, my arms are free_ and that the weight had lifted off of her. She sits up quickly and tries to see where her attacker went, but, dizzy with blood loss, immediately falls back down onto the cement.

_Ouch_, she thinks dully.

"Wow, do you have bad luck," says an amused female voice behind her. "I've been stationed in this town for a month and that's the first vamp I've seen. I was almost going to skip patrolling tonight."

Rachel tilts her head back to see the woman, a young brunette who's leaning against a tree and holding a wooden stake, and asks, "Are you going to try to kill me too? If so, you should know that my two dads have a lot of lawyer friends, not to mention police connections, so there's a good chance that you'll end up in jail for life if you do."

The woman laughs. "I'm just waiting for the ambulance to get here. I figure letting a kid die while I'm on probation won't help get me back in Willow's good book."

"So you saved me?"

"Yeah. So it wouldn't really be worth killing you now," says the woman.

"How'd you stop him? He was-"

"I used my super powers," says the woman, and even though Rachel thinks she's trying to be sarcastic, she believes her.

There's quiet, and for a moment Rachel just lies there, brain blank except for that Defying Gravity is stuck in her head. An approaching ambulance's sirens begin to whine.

_I'm alive_, Rachel thinks.

"Can I have you name and address?" she asks the woman.

The woman starts, losing her grip the stake she'd been holding, but catches it before it hits the ground. "Still thinking about pressing charges?"

"Although most people think it's an unnecessary gesture in the internet age, I think hand-written thank you cards express gratitude much more genuinely than e-cards do. And you saved my life," Rachel explains. "It's the sort of thing I'd send a thank you card for."

The woman laughs again, refuses to give Rachel either, and leaves just before the ambulance arrives.

Rachel passes out on the way to the hospital, and when she wakes up the next day, her two dads and the Glee Club are standing in her hospital room (even Kurt, who looks like he may actually have been worried). Finn hugs her, and she thinks that that almost makes her near-death experience worth it.

She talks to her dads in private, later, about the woman who saved her and the strange man that attacked her. Her dads believe her story unquestioningly, and when she asks, immediately set out to track down the woman. They're rewarded with just enough vague information to serve Rachel's purposes.

* * *

  
When Kennedy sees Rachel standing at her door a week later, she looks surprised and only a little annoyed. Rachel takes this as a good sign. "Hello," she says, and hands Kennedy an envelope. "Thank you for saving my life.

"Now, I'd kindly like to request that you, or, specifically, the Council that's backing you, take me on as a part-time employee."

"Sorry, kid," Kennedy says. "We're not really by-request people."

"Well," says Rachel, "it's either that or I leak to the local papers that my dads and I have discovered evidence suggesting that a shady international organization has an employee in our neighborhood whose presence the local government is unaware of _and_ who was directly involved in the assault of a local teen."

Instead of irritated, Kennedy looks distinctly amused by Rachel's threat. "What makes you think that this is a good idea?" she asks.

Rachel gives Kennedy her most winning smile, the one she's been practicing in her mirror for years. "I'm always willing to take on another extracurricular."

_A/N: Sometimes, it's fun to just sit down and write a crossover for two shows that were obviously never meant to cross over. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it (i.e. it was only difficult sometimes XP). Please, tell me what you thought! And feel more than free to point out any errors._


End file.
